#burgher rights

[racefortheironthrone]

Please tell me more about neighbourhood PMCs in renaissance Italy

It would be my pleasure! (My research into this owes a lot to the excellent Power and Imagination: City-States in Renaissance Italy by Lauro Martines.)

The first thing to note that, unlike the condottieri, these were not private military companies. Rather, the neighborhood military companies (in the sense of a military unit, rather than a profit-making entity) were self-defense organizations formed as part of a centuries-long political struggle for control over the urban commune between the signorile (the urban chivalry)/nobilita (the urban nobility) and the populo (the guilded middle class, who claimed to speak on behalf of "the people").

This conflict followed much the same logic that had given rise to the medieval commune in the first place. Legally, the communes had started as mutual defense pacts between the signorile and the cives (the free citizens of the city) against the rural feudal nobility, which had given these groups the military and political muscle to push out the marquises and viscounts and barons and claim exclusive authority over the tax system, the judicial system, and the military.

So it made sense that, once they had vanquished their enemies and established the commune as the sovereign, both sides would use the same tactic in their struggle over which of them would rule the commune that ruled the city. The signorile and nobilita formed themselves into consorteria or "tower societies," by which ancient families allied with one another (complete with dynastic marriage alliances!) to build and garrison the towers with the knights, squires, men-at-arms, and bravi of their households. These phallic castle substitutes were incredibly formidable within the context of urban warfare, as relatively small numbers of men with crossbows could rain down hell on besiegers from the upper windows and bridges between towers, even as the poor bastards on the ground tried to force the heavy doors down below.

To combat noble domination of communal government, achieve direct representation on the political councils, establish equity of taxation and regulate interest rates, and enforce legal equality between nobility and citizenry, the populo formed themselves into guilds to build alliances between merchants and artisans in the same industries. However, these amateur soldiers struggled to fight on even footing with fully-trained and well-equipped professional soldiers, and the guild militias were frequently defeated.

To solve their military dilemma, the populo engaged in political coalition-building with the oldest units of the urban commune: the neighborhoods. When the cities of medieval Italy were originally founded, they had been rather decentralized transplantations of the rural villages, where before people had any conception of a city-wide collective their primary allegiance was to their neighborhood. As can still be seen in the Palio di Siena to this day, these contrade built a strong identity based on local street gangs, the parish church, their traditional heraldry, and their traditional rivalries with the stronzi in the next contrade over. And whether they were maggiori, minori, or unguilded laborers, everyone in the city was a member of their contrade.

As Martines describes, the populo both recruited from (and borrowed the traditions of) the contrade to form their armed neighborhood companies into a force that would have the manpower, the discipline, and the morale to take on the consorteria:

"Every company had its distinctive banner and every house in the city was administratively under the sign of a company. A dragon, a whip, a serpent, a bull, a bounding horse, a lion, a ladder: these, in different colors and on contrasting fields, were some of the leitmotifs of the twenty different banners. They were emblazoned on individual shields and helmets. Rigorous regulations required guildsmen to keep their arms near at hand, above all in troubled times. The call to arms for the twenty companies was the ringing of a special bell, posted near the main public square. A standard-bearer, flanked by four lieutenants, was in command of each company."

To knit these companies organized by neighborhood into a single cohesive force, the lawyers' guilds within the populo created a state within a state, complete with written constitutions, guild charters, legal codes, legislative and executive councils. Under these constitutions, the populo's councils would elect a capitano del popolo, a professional soldier from outside the city who would serve as a politically-neutral commander, with a direct chain of command over the gonfaloniere and lieutenants of the neighborhood companies, to lead the populo against their noble would-be overlords.

And in commune after commune, the neighborhood companies made war against the consorteria, taking the towers one by one and turning them into fortresses of the populo. The victorious guilds turned their newly-won military might into political hegemony over the commune, stripping the nobilita of their power and privilege and forcing them either into submission or exile. Then they directed their veteran neighborhood companies outward to seize control of the rural hinterland from the feudal aristocracy, until the city had become city-state.

(Ironically, in the process, the populo gave birth to the condottieri, as the nobility who had lost their landed wealth and political power took their one remaining asset - their military training and equipment - and became professional mercenaries. But that's a story for another time...)

[fluffysheeple]

the medieval peasant I brought into the present and am explaining society to: So, these "CEOs", they are akin to... burgher kings?

me: hold that thought. We need to go somewhere right now

[communist-manifesto-daily]

Socialism: Utopian and Scientific - Part 16

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But, side by side with the antagonisms of the feudal nobility and the burghers, who claimed to represent all the rest of society, was the general antagonism of exploiters and exploited, of rich idlers and poor workers. It was this very circumstance that made it possible for the representatives of the bourgeoisie to put themselves forward as representing not one special class, but the whole of suffering humanity. Still further. From its origin the bourgeoisie was saddled with its antithesis: capitalists cannot exist without wage-workers, and, in the same proportion as the mediaeval burgher of the guild developed into the modern bourgeois, the guild journeyman and the day-laborer, outside the guilds, developed into the proletarian. And although, upon the whole, the bourgeoisie, in their struggle with the nobility, could claim to represent at the same time the interests of the different working-classes of that period, yet in every great bourgeois movement there were independent outbursts of that class which was the forerunner, more or less developed, of the modern proletariat. For example, at the time of the German Reformation and the Peasants’ War, the Anabaptists and in the great French Revolution, Babeuf.

These were theoretical enunciations, corresponding with these revolutionary uprisings of a class not yet developed; in the 16th and 17th centuries, Utopian pictures of ideal social conditions; in the 18th century, actual communistic theories (Morelly and Mably)[2]. The demand for equality was no longer limited to political rights; it was extended also to the social conditions of individuals. It was not simply class privileges that were to be abolished, but class distinctions themselves. A Communism, ascetic, denouncing all the pleasures of life, Spartan, was the first form of the new teaching. Then came the three great Utopians: Saint-Simon, to whom the middle-class movement, side by side with the proletarian, still had a certain significance; Fourier; and Owen, who in the country where capitalist production was most developed, and under the influence of the antagonisms begotten of this, worked out his proposals for the removal of class distinction systematically and in direct relation to French materialism.

One thing is common to all three. Not one of them appears as a representative of the interests of that proletariat which historical development had, in the meantime, produced. Like the French philosophers, they do not claim to emancipate a particular class to begin with, but all humanity at once. Like them, they wish to bring in the kingdom of reason and eternal justice, but this kingdom, as they see it, is as far as Heaven from Earth, from that of the French philosophers.

For, to our three social reformers, the bourgeois world, based upon the principles of these philosophers, is quite as irrational and unjust, and, therefore, finds its way to the dust-hole quite as readily as feudalism and all the earlier stages of society. If pure reason and justice have not, hitherto, ruled the world, this has been the case only because men have not rightly understood them. What was wanted was the individual man of genius, who has now arisen and who understands the truth. That he has now arisen, that the truth has now been clearly understood, is not an inevitable event, following of necessity in the chains of historical development, but a mere happy accident. He might just as well have been born 500 years earlier, and might then have spared humanity 500 years of error, strife, and suffering.

We saw how the French philosophers of the 18th century, the forerunners of the Revolution, appealed to reason as the sole judge of all that is. A rational government, rational society, were to be founded; everything that ran counter to eternal reason was to be remorselessly done away with. We saw also that this eternal reason was in reality nothing but the idealized understanding of the 18th century citizen, just then evolving into the bourgeois. The French Revolution had realized this rational society and government.

[2] Engels refers here to the works of the utopian Socialists Thomas More (16th century) and Tommaso Campanella (17th century). See Code de la nature, Morelly, Paris 1841 and De la législation, ou principe des lois (note from OP: no English translation available thus far), Mably, Amsterdam 1776.

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[collapsedsquid]

If all the burghers of Small Town USA get together and say “we want a local bank that lends to our small businesses and sponsors our parades,” the answer is “okay just keep your money on deposit there earning 0% interest.” And if they say “no we can get 5% on our money-market funds” then the answer is “okay no parades for you then.” (Or: “Fine, but take some of the interest you get from your money-market funds and contribute them to the parade fund, or the Kickstarter for your small businesses.”) You can have the unconscious economic coordination of local banking, or you can use modern technology to squeeze every basis point out of your cash, but not both.

Matt Levine identifying the central contradiction in the American right-wing

[sourcreammachine]

REFORM PARTY "MANIFESTO" 2024 SUMMARY

they say it ain't a manifesto even though it is. they're tryna pretend they're not politicians even though they are. their reasoning is that they know they won't be the next government, so this is what they'd push for as opposition members - just like in the manifestos of the greens, SNP etc. but anyway, this "contract" of theirs is scant and they're running a vibes-based campaign. you don't need to see any actual policies, no no no. you already know if they're for you or not. oh, and if you think they're for you - just like all far right parties, they ain't: they're for capital, they're for vested interests, they're for cruelty. they're for the classic quasi-accelerationist burnout cycle that'll weaken the base of society and the economy and ruin fucking everything. but hey, at least there won't be no immigrants. i'm so sorry if you see them as the future: they're taking you for a ride just as you've been used time and time again, because there is no clearly accessible political solution to improving your material conditions as current politics stand, i'm sorry - that is, within the paradigm you know - there're answers just outside the tunnel-vision you've been forced into. why not take a look sometime. who knows, you might find some hope.

i'm not shitting you, though. the manifesto is not long. go read it. see for yourself the draconian horror they advocate, and will push for these five years, and will endorse with the hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of Short Money coming their way after they get into parliament. this isn't a 2015 UKIP moment, a single-issue agenda that'll flame out. even if they fail in their 2029 campaign with no votes against the tories to count on, these ideas and their influence are here to stay for the medium-term now. even if we remove the rosethorn it'll keep bleeding and bleeding and bleeding

yeah, on account of the scantness, these policies are vague. they're much more like ideas rather than proposals. the general nonsense of them has been fact-checked time and time again so i won't bother. here's just a summary of their rambling ephemeral suggestions

💷ECONOMY

revoke benefits after four months, MANDATORY acceptance of the second job offer on pain of benefit revocation, make all eligibility capability assessments in-person, mandating medical assessments, to catastrophically reduce disability benefit entitlements

raise the personal allowance to §20k/a, cutting individual taxation by §1600/a. raise it to §25k for the married

raise the second band of income tax from about §50k to §70k cutting an ABHORRENT amount of tax from the upper-middle class, far far far far far more than the tax cuts on §20k-earners

leave the World Economic Forum, plummet corporation tax from its already international tax-haven low levels, abolish any business tax for "high-street based" small businesses to create a new class of fat cat burghers, VAT refund for businesses making under §150k/a profit no matter what it is they're flogging

revoke european trade agreements and collapse trade with the mainland

massive tax breaks for defence contractors

'frontload' the child benefit system, plunging it after the child turns four

pour money into giving tourists a full refund on VAT

surge the inheritance tax threshold to §2m BUT "allow the money to be donated to charity instead" (ie allowing massive loophole scams)

massive deregulation, including on the regulation of business and employment laws as "we must make it easier to hire and fire". the manifesto also whines about "6700 eu laws" that still stand, but whines and moves on, implying a mass unbounded deregulation of industry

🏥PUBLIC SERVICES

abolish the NHS and replace it with a private voucher system

catastrophic austerity: every government department to be removed of a 5% of its funding that it must account for itself, reducing spending across the board without central planning or oversight

catastrophic statecapture: abolish civil service leadership and replace them with politicised government appointees "from the private sector"

catastrophic hike on university entry requirements and mandate many be cut to two years

catastrophic privatisation of the remaining public healthcare with surge in outsourcing and contracting, 20% total tax relief for private healthcare

statecapture the BBC with full nationalisation

comprehensive curriculum audit to impose "patriotic education": mandate "any teaching about a period or example of british or european imperialism or slavery must be paired with the teaching of a non-european occurrence of the same to ensure balance", teach children about "their heritage"

public inquiry on "the harm of vaccines"

leave the WHO

end the exemption private schools from the 20% VAT. wait, wait no hang on i've got that wrong. oh right yeah, that's labour's policy, sorry. reform says to impose a 20% TAX RELIEF ON PRIVATE SCHOOLS. sorry peasants, your tax money is funding Eton now

🏠HOUSING

catastrophic tax breaks for small landlords

revoke the renters reform bill

abolish stamp duty (the tax on the buying of homes) under §750k and plummet it above that mark, allowing obscene wealth transfers, massive property buyup, catastrophic housing supply saturation, and the annihilation of first-time buying

🚄TRANSPORT ?

ban and abolish low emission zones

ban and abolish low traffic neighbourhoods

ban and abolish all 20mph zones except outside schools

lower petrol tax

👮FORCE

abolish the human rights act

abolish the equality act

leave the european convention on human rights

freeze "non-essential immigration", and they do not elaborate what they mean or what the policy definition is to be. so they're just gonna be rambling about ephemera to kingdom come. that's the game they're playing

10% HEAD TAX ON IMMIGRANTS via additional national insurance charge

REVOCATION OF CITIZENSHIP FROM IMMIGRANT UK CITIZENS COMMITTED OF CRIMES, without specifying whether or not this applies only to dual-citizens, meaning reform supports the mass imposition of STATELESS status, A GRAVE AND ABHORRENT CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY

invade france. i'm being serious. they'd intercept and arrest small-boat crossers and 'take them back to france', violating french territorial sovereignty on both land and sea via the use of force, gravely violating international law against our neighbour

FORTY THOUSAND new police in five years, around 25% more, massively prioritise pipelining ex-military officers and enlistees into the police, abolish PCSOs and make them regular broken-windows police

labour camps for young offenders

create a US-style coast guard and begin routine patrols for migrants or foreign fishers

surge armed forces funding by the highest amount proposed by any party

"stop Sharia law being used in the UK", ie draconian monitoring of mosques, muslim community organisations, the palestine movement, and any muslim

absolute prohibition on asylum applications from "safe countries", sentencing desperate seekers to political persecution and death by mere categorical definition

increase stop-and-search powers, mandates and centrality in policing tactics, pursue broken windows policing,

MANDATORY MINIMUM OF LIFE for second violent/serious offences or ANY drug dealing, new offence for 'substantial possession of drugs'

catastrophically demolish the legalised definition of hatecrime to de facto prevent its use for any prosecution

mass prison building, convert disused military bases into prison camps

bad internet bill: massive inquiry into 'child social media use' (under their watch requiring catastrophic restrictions), renew the online safety bill as "social media giants that push baseless transgender ideology and divisive critical race theory should have no role in regulating free speech"

abolish the northern ireland framework, seemingly unilaterally, paving the way for a hard border and blowing the starting whistle on The Troubles 2

speaking of which: exempt the armed forces from human rights law

catastrophically plummet the number of student visas and prohibit international students with dependents

end funding for european defence programmes. sorry estonia looks like you're lost. oh also "the west provoked putin" so there's that

require the licensing of foreign trawlers in the eez, beginning a cold war with iceland

halve international development / foreign aid funding from its already tiny budget, with specific mention of "global quangos" (literally how many centuries has it been and antisemitism is STILL invoked by these pillocks)

🌱ECOCIDE

repeal every penny of green investment

abolish all emissions targets including for all public services

abolish all renewable energy subsidies

mandate the use of fertile land for farming, ban natural england from protecting 'farmland' land, end and ban all rewinding programmes

abolish environmental levies

catastrophic surge on oil/gas licensing and open new lithium and coal mines, and support biomass/biofuel

🗳️DEMOCRACY ?

begin trumpist restriction on the ability to vote

abolish all postal voting apart from the elderly and disabled

keep voter ID

"legislate to stop left-wing bias and politically correct ideology"

proportional commons and elected senate

🏳️‍⚧️REACTIONARY AGENDA not otherwise covered

for all transgender schoolchildren who have not been permitted a gender recognition certificate: prohibit the use of correct pronouns by any teacher, prohibit the recognition of social transitioning by any teacher, and require mandatory outing to their parents

ban all unisex toilets

"cut funding to universities that undermine free speech", with no clarification, meaning they get to bully anyone they chose

abolish the public health observatory on racial health disparities

look, yeah. the manifesto is short, their purview is open. the door is not shut. everything is on the table. their one, two, three or more MPs are going to be using your tax money to advocate anything and anything that harms migrants, queer and trans people. nonwhite citizens and any annoying political movement can and will be fair game for total attack and political annihilation. wherever the transphobic tornado goes next they will join in. it is going to be a dangerous time for us. they are going to push for absolutely anything they can to harm trans people. your country. your money. your responsibility to fight them. that is what democracy is

[coochie-sniffer3000]

hello i am the coochie sniffer !! (but you can call me socks) right now im atrociously into mother/earthbound so you’ll see a lot of that here c:

ima start using tag #2¢ for when i yap in tags for no reason

i figured its kind of awful finding art in my blog so i made another blog that’s easier to sort through @coochie-art3000

don’t be afraid to message me for witerally anything!! and also i have a burger bin for people to put burgers in. you can put asks in there too but its mostly for burgher

[memorycycle]

imm literally eating a burgher with honey mustard right now i feel like my life is complete

[monarcho-mysticism]

The peasantry may have had very little rights, but they also had very low moral expectations on them. Nobody batted an eye, if a peasant was a dirty drunk wifebeater. That was, in a way, exactly what was expected of a man of his status. If a burgher, or a noble, or anyone above the bottom layer would exhibit such behaviour though, he would be ostracized, ridiculed, and very likely persecuted in some way.

Political rights are a reward for morality.

[ereh-emanresu-tresni]

I hate the term "bourgeoisie" so much like. Marx my dude "burgher" was . right there. Did you have to go and make it inherently pretentious-sounding opting for French instead?

[racefortheironthrone]

Did commoners own any land? Were there real estate moguls in cities which rented space to shop keepers and such?

Kind of, yes.

I've discussed this earlier, but "alloidal title" wasn't really a thing in medieval societies, thanks to the legal doctrine of "nulle terre sans seigneur." (No land without a lord.) Thus, the overwhelming majority of land tenures were various forms of leases or use-rights.

So yes, commoners could have extensive landholdings, whether they be rural yeomen or urban burghers, but they tended to be in the form of long, long-term leases rather than what we would consider to be ownership today.

So for example, when Thomas Cromwell was making his dizzying run up the social ladder in the 1530s, he mostly did it by snapping up hundred year leases to valuable properties in town and country, and only started acquiring formal titles when he made it into the aristocracy.

[amateur-ornithology]

at last, he can reclaim his crown and with it his right to vote in a municipally incoporated town, thus taking on his true title of Burgher King

[spacemansolomon]

drew my mork borg party. From left to right--

Abraham, a former peasant farmer with a hook hand who receives visions of doom from biblically accurate angels. Carries a flaming flail taken from a warlock, vaguely obsessed with catching rats.

Sweetmeats, a fanged deserter with a rusty zweihander. Proudly cannibalistic, carries his trophies (his sweetmeats) on hooks hung around his person. Very insecure, very illiterate.

Nikolai the Caged, alias Al Burgher. Skinwalker who can turn into a doomsaying (literate!) monkey. Has an iron cage welded around his head, as well as a major drinking problem. Carries a pickaxe taken from a bar fight. Dedicated scroll monkey.

[wkedhirijkudebolivakk]

n'Irij fan. Ne sekude doroj sirg. Ar gwr za? Dellang za?

Sesane tav 'ne Kaðruon'. Ni dujl gulli itt æn vætt mosi sesjkejn æn llæde tungejn muren ne kaðe ganar. Ni kaðe ganar 'kaðruon', Irij dostluj tav. Korið g'onzræji bast, eniðen araðne na zib (kaðe lluoktene rag bizet att).

Gið ojmpræj okkar ojmeð dostel, er lluokne dostel ne nageð ojmpræj zib. Nij sag, alle kað doron araðen korið sjejni biend. Ni dones turuj Uma Markes Iekojuo, Guoðvakke kujnleð dostel.

Kolov morsj, ne doro inið nikke, æn im ni doroj ganden. Æni sjara, dujl ne gul Irijkude demæsi swð Likki Mari Matujuo.

An, ne faneð ne Kaðruon turuj segar lleluoten æn llærduren æn sekud bænd Irijkude siek (ne gulli itt).

[The Frisland flag. Symbol of our land in cloth. What is its history? What does it mean?

The name that we call it is 'the Blueband'. It shows a field of gold and over it a blue line from top-left to bottom-right. This blue line is a 'blue-band', a symbol of Frislandic leaders. It began as a shepherd's cloak, similar to those still worn today (it is not known why blue is the colour of choice).

If a shepherd is a leader to his flock, so an elected leader is like a shepherd for the people. Because of this, burghers began wearing a band of blue cloth as part of their office. The picture depicts Mark Jameson One-eyed, a mercenary leader from Godmec.

Over the years, the band became smaller, till now it is a strip of cloth. Here is a picture showing the first female president of Frisland, Mary Matthewson Wise.

On the flag, then, the blueband signifies our elections and our freedom from tyranny, and safeguards the riches of our country (the golden field).]

[ostermad-blog]

Dungeon23 9jan23 hex

Quick history lesson.

***

Back in the 8th century, the Umayyid caliphate conquered most of the Iberian Peninsula, leaving a few Catholic kingdoms in the northern part. Rather unhappy with the state of affairs, these kingdoms waged a centuries-long war to expel the Muslims and Jews. In the real world, they succeeded, conquering the last remaining Moorish kingdoms in 1492 and formally expelling all non-Catholics from the peninsula and marked the start of the Spanish Catholics forcing all the remaining Muslims and Jews to choose between conversion or death (the Spanish Inquisition begins in 1478). But we're not in the real world. In our setting, the Kingdom of Granada, backed into a corner by the invading Catholics, discovered something profound, something that changed the face of warfare forever. They learned how to make golems. Beautiful, bronze creations adorned with exquisite calligraphy and imbued with an indefatigable will. The Granadans unleashed their new creations alongside their armies and routed the united Catholic troops, ultimately retaking the entire peninsula. The Pyrenees prevented the Granadans from pushing further into Europe, and they were content to hold the peninsula. This posed a rather profound dilemma for the Holy Roman Empire and other Christian kingdoms in Europe: how do the self-proclaimed representatives of God's will on Earth deal with a military technology they do not understand and cannot seem to use themselves? Fortunately, after a hundred years or so of relative stability between the Granadans and Holy Roman Empire, Granadan artificers were more than happy to move to the courts of Christian Europe to act as advisors and tutors, for a suitable fee. Catholic scholars had assembled their own constructs, built from gold and the bones of saints, but they were unsettling, and the resurrectionists who built them were unsavory types that always smelled of grave soil and ash. Courts competed over having the best Granadan artificers the same way they competed over having the best musicians and artists, and thus Granadans spread throughout Europe. When the Corruscation boiled the land and soured the seas, access to the Kingdom of Granada and Northern Africa was cut off, but the Granadans already there were stuck. With the rise of supernatural terrors in the darkening woods, their golems became highly prized, and the knowledge of how to craft them doubly so.

***

Okie, loredump over. Hex 5,5 is right next to a number of very prominent landmarks: the Ratusz, the Zamoyski Academy, and the gardens of Zamoyski Palace off to the West. As Zamoyski Academy is one of three centers of higher learning in all of Nowa Polska, artificers of all stripes gather here in the hopes of improving their craft. The workshops here, closed to the general public, are a combination of exhibition hall and clockwork foundry. Most of the constructs built here are priceless. Consequently, the workshops have the second-highest security of any placein Zamość after Zamoyski Palace.Player characters are unlikely to gain legal entry to the Golem Workshops without an arm and a leg of work. After passing exhaustive tests, pupils from the Academy may choose to apprentice as artificers, but entry to the Academy is reserved for the children of szlachta and wealthy burghers. There are no scholarships. Players who perform a great service for the Ordynat (ruler of Zamość) would likely get a tour of the workshop and perhaps a gift of something made there, but little else.Players disinterested in legal entry would find rather a lot of near-priceless treasure. Gold, gems, rare inks, exquisite clockwork contraptions, and possibly even a near-finished golem. Assuming they can bypass the many security mechanisms and successfully exfiltrate with the loot, their heist would be the crime of the century.See, I told you things would get spicy.

[46ten]

The Importance of being a Van Rensselaer

Van Rensselaer of Rensselaerswyck: the Boy Patroon, is a chapter in Historic Boys: Their Endeavors, Their Achievements, and Their Times by E.S. Brooks (1885). The whole thing is a bit of a wild read. I’m also guffawing a bit at Stephen Van Rensselaer III (above, in a Gilbert Stuart portrait from the 1790s) treated as worthy of a chapter when the other “boy” subjects are Marcus (Aurelius, the Emperor) William of Normandy (the Conqueror), Frederick (the Emperor), Baldwin (the King), Louis (the XIV), and so on. Maybe they needed an American subject of similar aristocratic bent. Then again, Stephen would be worth about $126 BILLION today (December 2022 American dollars)! He has been included in a list of the 10 richest Americans of all time. 

This chapter has some amazing paragraphs:

The news fell with a sudden shock upon the little city of the Dutchmen. Ticonderoga fallen, and the Indians on the war-path! Even the most stolid of the Albany burghers felt his heart beating faster, while many a mother looked anxiously at her little ones and called to mind the terrible tales of Indian cruelty and pillage. But the young Van Rensselaer, pressing close to the side of fair Mistress Margarita Schuyler, said soberly: "These be sad tidings, Margery; would it not be wiser for you all to come up to the manor-house for safety?"

"For safety?" echoed high-spirited Mistress Margery. "Why, what need, Stephanus? Is not my father in command at Fort Edward? and not for Burgoyne and all his Indians need we fear while he is there! So, many thanks, my lord patroon," she continued, with a mock courtesy; "but I 'm just as safe under the Schuyler gables as I could be in the Van Rensselaer manor-house, even with the brave young patroon himself as my defender."

The lad looked a little crestfallen; for he regarded himself as the natural protector of this brave little lady, whose father was facing the British invaders on the shores of the Northern lakes. Had it not been one, almost, of the unwritten laws of the colonie, since the day of the first patroon, that a Van Rensselaer should wed a Schuyler? Who, then, should care for a daughter of the, house of Schuyler in times of trouble but a son of the house of Rensselaer? [My emphasis.]

And this:

"Time was, lad, when your ancestors, the lord patroons of Rensselaerswyck, were makers and masters of the law in this their colonie. From their own forts floated their own flag and frowned their own cannon. Their word was law and from Beeren's Island to Pafraet's Dael the Heer Van Rensselaer's orders were obeyed without question. Forts and flags and cannon are no longer yours, Stephen, and we would not have it otherwise; but your word still holds as good with your tenantry as did that of the first boy patroon, Johannes the son of Killian, when, backed by his gecommitteerden  and his sclzepens, he bearded the Heer General Stuyvesant and claimed all Rensselaerswyck as his 'by right of arms.' Try your word with them, lad. Let me be your gecommitteerden and, in the name of the patroon, demand from your tenantry of Rensselaerswyck provisions and forage for our gallant troops."

Yes, remember your obligations as 8th Patroon, Stephen. I wonder how many requests for assistance he received? Here’s his response from one from his brother-in-law, AH, in a letter dated 6Nov 1797:

I received your letter on the subject of Mr. [Josiah Ogden] Hoffmans embarrassments [he was heavily in debt] altho I always feel disposed to aid those who are in distress & particularly those for whom I have a friendship yet when I reflect on the extent of the operation proposed & the sacrifices I should be obliged to make to fulfill my engagements if I became responsible a sense of duty to my family forbids me acceding to the proposition.

And that’s why he’s one of the 10 richest Americans ever! Continuing...

I congratulate you on the birth of your son [William Stephen Hamilton, born 4Aug1797]. I hope he may inherit your talents & virtues. My wife as well as myself are much flattered with the name & joins me in love to Mrs H & Children.

There’s been speculation that Stephen is being a little sarcastic here with the “talents and virtues” thing so soon after publication of the Reynolds Pamphlet, but “talents and virtues” was a very common phrase to describe a person, so it would have been glaring if Stephen had only praised AH’s “talents,” or made no mention of his hopes and wishes for his newest namesake. 

Back to the Van Rensselaers with some literary references to them:

From Chapter One of Moby Dick:

No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast, plumb down into the forecastle, aloft there to the royal mast-head. True, they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort of thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one’s sense of honour, particularly if you come of an old established family in the land, the Van Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes. And more than all, if just previous to putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have been lording it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand in awe of you. The transition is a keen one, I assure you, from a schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong decoction of Seneca and the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it. But even this wears off in time.

The Van Rensselaers are thought to be the basis of the fictional van der Luydens, the ones who “stood above them all” in NY society in Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence. Wharton was distantly related to the Van Rensselaers herself. There’s some speculation that Wharton’s great love was a Van Rensselaer descendant, Walter Van Rensselaer Berry. And to take this all the way back, Walter Berry’s doubles partner in tennis (they made the finals of the U.S. Championship in 1884) was his cousin Alexander Van Rensselaer, a grandson of Stephen Van Rensselaer III. 

P.S. The Heritage History website is very interesting for its cataloguing of old books (c 1850-1920 or so) on various subjects. 

[oodlenoodleroodle]

Another manly king-queen of interest and inspiration could be Queen Christina of Sweden (bonus points for queer readings: she very much wanted to be a man, had possibly romantic connections with both men and women, and abhorred sex), which also provides interesting insights into the way religion complicated the lives of medieval people.

Another thing about women and craftspeople specifically. The burghers/bourgeoise was centered in towns, where they had their businesses and guilds and political organisation. And for a large majority of the trades the master's wife and daughters as well as sons helped at the workshop, especially if there was small and fiddly things to do like with goldsmithing/silversmithing, or if it was something like weavers who would have as many looms as they could fit and needed people to work the looms. Women in the family were labour – and really important and valuable labour in guilds that had rules against how many apprentices and journeymen the master could have, because wife and daughters didn't count in that number.

And usually a widow of a master inherited the right to keep the business running at least for a time (year and a day after her husband's death was a common one, but some were allowed to continue indefinitely) and a handy way to keep the workshop in the family was to marry a journeyman who aspired to be a master craftsman himself. Like, the guild was much more likely to grant a journeyman marrying a master's widow the right to continue the workshop than to give a random journeyman the right to start a new workshop from scratch. So for example my town in south of Finland has a long line of master pewterers who all always married the previous master's widow, and then married a new woman when the first one died.

all RIGHT:

Why You’re Writing Medieval (and Medieval-Coded) Women Wrong: A RANT

(Or, For the Love of God, People, Stop Pretending Victorian Style Gender Roles Applied to All of History)

This is a problem I see alllll over the place - I’ll be reading a medieval-coded book and the women will be told they aren’t allowed to fight or learn or work, that they are only supposed to get married, keep house and have babies, &c &c.

If I point this out ppl will be like “yes but there was misogyny back then! women were treated terribly!” and OK. Stop right there.

By & large, what we as a culture think of as misogyny & patriarchy is the expression prevalent in Victorian times - not medieval. (And NO, this is not me blaming Victorians for their theme park version of “medieval history”. This is me blaming 21st century people for being ignorant & refusing to do their homework).

Yes, there was misogyny in medieval times, but 1) in many ways it was actually markedly less severe than Victorian misogyny, tyvm - and 2) it was of a quite different type. (Disclaimer: I am speaking specifically of Frankish, Western European medieval women rather than those in other parts of the world. This applies to a lesser extent in Byzantium and I am still learning about women in the medieval Islamic world.)

So, here are the 2 vital things to remember about women when writing medieval or medieval-coded societies

FIRST. Where in Victorian times the primary axes of prejudice were gender and race - so that a male labourer had more rights than a female of the higher classes, and a middle class white man would be treated with more respect than an African or Indian dignitary - In medieval times, the primary axis of prejudice was, overwhelmingly, class. Thus, Frankish crusader knights arguably felt more solidarity with their Muslim opponents of knightly status, than they did their own peasants. Faith and age were also medieval axes of prejudice - children and young people were exploited ruthlessly, sent into war or marriage at 15 (boys) or 12 (girls). Gender was less important.

What this meant was that a medieval woman could expect - indeed demand - to be treated more or less the same way the men of her class were. Where no ancient legal obstacle existed, such as Salic law, a king’s daughter could and did expect to rule, even after marriage.

Women of the knightly class could & did arm & fight - something that required a MASSIVE outlay of money, which was obviously at their discretion & disposal. See: Sichelgaita, Isabel de Conches, the unnamed women fighting in armour as knights during the Third Crusade, as recorded by Muslim chroniclers.

Tolkien’s Eowyn is a great example of this medieval attitude to class trumping race: complaining that she’s being told not to fight, she stresses her class: “I am of the house of Eorl & not a serving woman”. She claims her rights, not as a woman, but as a member of the warrior class and the ruling family. Similarly in Renaissance Venice a doge protested the practice which saw 80% of noble women locked into convents for life: if these had been men they would have been “born to command & govern the world”. Their class ought to have exempted them from discrimination on the basis of sex.

So, tip #1 for writing medieval women: remember that their class always outweighed their gender. They might be subordinate to the men within their own class, but not to those below.

SECOND. Whereas Victorians saw women’s highest calling as marriage & children - the “angel in the house” ennobling & improving their men on a spiritual but rarely practical level - Medievals by contrast prized virginity/celibacy above marriage, seeing it as a way for women to transcend their sex. Often as nuns, saints, mystics; sometimes as warriors, queens, & ladies; always as businesswomen & merchants, women could & did forge their own paths in life

When Elizabeth I claimed to have “the heart & stomach of a king” & adopted the persona of the virgin queen, this was the norm she appealed to. Women could do things; they just had to prove they were Not Like Other Girls. By Elizabeth’s time things were already changing: it was the Reformation that switched the ideal to marriage, & the Enlightenment that divorced femininity from reason, aggression & public life.

For more on this topic, read Katherine Hager’s article “Endowed With Manly Courage: Medieval Perceptions of Women in Combat” on women who transcended gender to occupy a liminal space as warrior/virgin/saint.

So, tip #2: remember that for medieval women, wife and mother wasn’t the ideal, virgin saint was the ideal. By proving yourself “not like other girls” you could gain significant autonomy & freedom.

Finally a bonus tip: if writing about medieval women, be sure to read writing on women’s issues from the time so as to understand the terms in which these women spoke about & defended their ambitions. Start with Christine de Pisan.

I learned all this doing the reading for WATCHERS OF OUTREMER, my series of historical fantasy novels set in the medieval crusader states, which were dominated by strong medieval women! Book 5, THE HOUSE OF MOURNING (forthcoming 2023) will focus, to a greater extent than any other novel I’ve ever yet read or written, on the experience of women during the crusades - as warriors, captives, and political leaders. I can’t wait to share it with you all!